1 @c -*- coding: utf-8; mode: texinfo; -*-
2 @node Administrative policies
3 @chapter Administrative policies
5 This chapter discusses miscellaneous administrative issues which
6 don't fit anywhere else.
9 * Meta-policy for this document::
11 * Administrative mailing list::
12 * Grand Organization Project (GOP)::
13 * Grand LilyPond Input Syntax Standardization (GLISS)::
17 @node Meta-policy for this document
18 @section Meta-policy for this document
20 The Contributor's Guide as a whole is still a work in progress,
21 but some chapters are much more complete than others. Chapters
22 which are @qq{almost finished} should not have major changes
23 without a discussion on @w{@code{-devel}}; in other chapters, a
24 disorganized @qq{wiki-style dump} of information is encouraged.
26 Do not change (other than spelling mistakes) without discussion:
31 @ref{Introduction to contributing}
34 @ref{Working with source code}
38 Please dump info in an appropriate @@section within these manuals,
39 but discuss any large-scale reorganization:
47 @ref{Documentation work}
53 @ref{Regression tests}
56 @ref{Programming work}
61 Totally disorganized; do whatever the mao you want:
75 @ref{Administrative policies}
84 We have four jobs for organizing a team of contributors:
89 Bug Meister: trains new Bug Squad volunteers, organizes who works
90 on which part of their job, checks to make sure that everything is
91 running smoothly, and has final say on our policy for Issues.
96 Doc Meister: trains new doc editors/writers, organizes who works
97 on which part of the job, checks to make sure that everything is
98 running smoothly, and has final say on our policy for
99 Documentation. Also includes LSR work.
104 Translation Meister: trains new translators, updates the
105 translation priority list, and handles merging branches (in both
111 Frog Meister: is responsible for code patches from (relatively)
112 inexperienced contributors. Keeps track of patches, does initial
113 reviewing of those patches, sends them to @w{@code{-devel}} when
114 they've had some initial review on the Frog list, pesters the
115 @w{@code{-devel}} community into actually reviewing said patches, and
116 finally pushes the patches once they're accepted. This person is
117 @emph{not} responsible for training new programmers, because that
118 would be far too much work -- he job is @qq{only} to guide
119 completed patches through our process.
125 @node Administrative mailing list
126 @section Administrative mailing list
128 An mailing list for administrative issues is maintained at
129 @code{lilypond-hackers@@gnu.org}.
131 This list is intended to be used for discussions that should be kept
132 private. Therefore, the archives are closed to the public.
134 Subscription to this list is limited to certain senior developers.
136 At the present time, the list is dormant.
138 Details about the criteria for membership, the types of discussion
139 to take place on the list, and other policies for the hackers list
140 will be finalized during the
141 @ref{Grand Organization Project (GOP)}.
145 @node Grand Organization Project (GOP)
146 @section Grand Organization Project (GOP)
152 Clarify the various development tasks by writing down the polices
153 and techniques and/or simplifying the tasks directly.
156 Get more people involved in development: specifically, find people
157 to do easy tasks to allow advanced developers to concentrate on
166 * Policy decisions (finished)::
170 @subsection Motivation
172 Most readers are probably familiar with the LilyPond Grand
173 Documentation Project, which ran from Aug 2007 to Aug 2008. This
174 project involved over 20 people and resulted in an almost complete
175 rewrite of the documentation. Most of those contributors were
176 normal users who decided to volunteer their time and effort to
177 improve lilypond for everybody. By any measure, it was a great
180 The Grand Organization Project aims to do the same thing with a
181 larger scope -- instead of focusing purely on documentation, the
182 project aims to improve all parts of LilyPond and its community.
183 Just as with GDP, the main goal is to encourage and train users to
184 become more involved.
186 If you have never contributed to an open-source project before --
187 especially if you use Windows or OSX and do not know how to
188 program or compile programs -- you may be wondering if there's
189 anything you can do. Rest assured that you @emph{can} help.
191 @subheading "Trickle-up" development
193 One of the reasons I'm organizing GOP is "trickle-up"
194 development. The idea is this: doing easy tasks frees up advanced
195 developers to do harder tasks. Don't ask "am I the @emph{best}
196 person for this job"; instead, ask "am I @emph{capable} of doing
197 this job, so that the current person can do stuff I @emph{can't}
200 For example, consider lilypond's poor handling of grace notes in
201 conjunction with clef and tempo changes. Fixing this will require
202 a fair amount of code rewriting, and would take an advanced
203 developer a few weeks to do. It's clearly beyond the scope of a
204 normal user, so we might as well sit back and do nothing, right?
206 No; we @emph{can} help, indirectly. Suppose that our normal user
207 starts answering more emails on lilypond-user. This in turn means
208 that documentation writers don't need to answer those emails, so
209 they can spend more time improving the docs. I've noticed that all
210 doc writers tackle harder and harder subjects, and when they start
211 writing docs on scheme programming and advanced tweaks, they start
212 contributing bug fixes to lilypond. Having people performing these
213 easy-to-moderate bug fixes frees up the advanced developers to
214 work on the really hard stuff... like rewriting the grace note
217 Having 1 more normal user answering emails on lilypond-user won't
218 have a dramatic trick-up affect all by himself, of course. But if
219 we had 8 users volunteering to answer emails, 6 users starting to
220 write documentation, and 2 users editing LSR... well, that would
221 free up a lot of current bug-fixing-capable contributors to focus
222 on that, and we could start to make a real dent in the number of
223 bugs in lilypond. Quite apart from the eased workload, having that
224 many new helpers will provide a great moral boost!
227 @subsection Ongoing jobs
229 Although GOP is a short-term project, the main goal is to train
230 more people to handle ongoing jobs. The more people doing these
231 jobs, the ligher the work will be, and the more we can get done
234 Also, it would be nice if we had at least one "replacement" /
235 "understudy" for each role -- too many tasks are only being done
236 by one person, so if that person goes on vacation or gets very
237 busy with other matters, work in that area grinds to a halt.
239 @subheading Jobs for normal users
243 LilyPond is sometimes critized for not listening to users, but
244 whenever we ask for opinions about specific issues, we never get
245 enough feedback. This is somewhat aggravating.
246 We need a group of users to make a dedicated effort to test and
247 give feedback. If there's new documentation, read it. If there's
248 an experimental binary, download it and try compiling a score with
249 it. If we're trying to name a new command, think about it and give
252 @item lilypond-user support:
253 I think it would be nice if we had an official team of users
256 @item LilyPond Report:
257 Keeping a monthly newsletter running is a non-trivial task. A lot
258 of work is needed to organize it; it would be great if we could
259 split up the work. One person could write the Snippet of the
260 Month, another person could do Quotes of the Month, another person
261 could do interviews, etc.
264 Although GDP (the Grand Documentation Project) did great work,
265 there's still many tasks remaining.
268 Keeping the documentation translations is a monumental task; we
269 need all the help we can get!
273 @subheading Jobs for advanced users for developers
276 @item Git help for writers:
277 We often receive reports of typos and minor text updates to the
278 documentation. It would be great if somebody could create
279 properly-formatted patches for these corrections.
281 Technical requirements: ability to run @ref{Lilydev}.
284 LSR contains many useful examples of lilypond, but some snippets
285 are out of date and need updating. Other snippets need to be
286 advertized, and new snippets need to be sorted. We could use
287 another person to handle LSR.
289 Technical requirements: use of a web browser. LilyPond
290 requirements: you should be familiar with most of Notation
291 chapters 1 and 2 (or be willing to read the docs to find out).
293 @item Join the Frogs:
294 "Frogs" are a team of bug-fixers (because frogs eat bugs, and you
295 often find them in Ponds of Lilies) and new feature implementors.
297 Technical requirements: development environment (such as
298 @ref{Lilydev}), ability to read+write scheme and/or C++ code.
303 @node Policy decisions
304 @subsection Policy decisions
306 There are a number of policy decisions -- some of them fairly
307 important -- which we have been postponing for a few years. We
308 are now discussing them slowly and thoroughly; agenda and exact
309 proposals are online:
312 @uref{http://lilypond.org/~graham/gop/index.html}
315 Below is a list of policies which are not @qq{on the agenda} yet.
317 Note that the presence of an item on this list does @emph{not}
318 mean that everybody thinks that something needs to be done.
319 Inclusion in this simply means that one developer thinks that we
320 should discuss it. We are not going to filter this list; if any
321 developer thinks we should discuss something, just add it to the
322 bottom of the list. (the list is unsorted)
324 As GOP progresses, items from this list will be put on the agenda
325 and removed from this list. I generally try to have one month's
326 discussion planned in advance, but I may shuffle things around to
327 respond to any immediate problems in the developer community.
329 There are some item(s) not displayed here; these are questions
330 that were posed to me privately, and I do not feel justified in
331 discussing them publicly without the consent of the person(s) that
332 brought them up. They will initially be discussed privately on the
333 lilypond-hackers mailing list -- but the first question will be
334 "do we absolutely need to do this privately", and if not, the
335 discussion will take place on lilypond-devel like the other items.
337 In most policy discussions in lilypond over the past few years,
338 the first half (or more) is wasted arguing on the basis of
339 incorrect or incomplete data; once all the relevant facts are
340 brought to light, the argument is generally resolved fairly
341 quickly. In order to keep the GOP discussions focused, each topic
342 will be introduced with a collection of relevant facts and/or
343 proposals. It is, of course, impossible to predict exactly which
344 facts will be relevant to the discussion -- but spending an hour
345 or two collecting information could still save hours of
348 @warning{The estimated time required for "prep work", and the
349 following discussion, has been added to each item. At the moment,
350 there is an estimated 30 hours of prep work and 140 hours of
354 @item @strong{Patch reviewing}:
355 At the time of this writing, we have 23 (known) patches waiting
356 for review. Some from main developers; some from new developers.
357 We desperately need more people helping with lilypond, but
358 ignoring patches is the best way to drive potential contributors
359 away. This is not good.
361 (prep: 2 hours. discuss: 10 hours)
363 @item @strong{Official links to other organizations?}:
364 There's something called the "software freedom conservancy", and
365 in general, there's a bunch of "umbrella organizations". Joining
366 some of these might give us more visibility, possibly leading to
367 more users, more developers, maybe even financial grants or use in
370 (prep: 2 hours. discuss: 5 hours)
372 @item @strong{Issue tracking with google code}:
373 We use the google issue tracker, but this means that we are
374 relying on a commercial entity for a large part of our
375 development. Would it be better (safer in the long run) to use the
376 savannah bug tracker?
378 (prep: 1 hour. discuss: 5 hours)
380 @item @strong{Patch review tool}:
381 Reitveld is inconvenient in some respects: it requires a google
382 account, and there's no way to see all patches relating to
383 lilypond. Should we switch to something like gerritt?
384 @uref{http://code.google.com/p/lilypond/issues/detail?id=1184}
386 (prep: 5 hours. discuss: 15 hours)
388 @item @strong{Subdomains of *.lilypond.org}:
389 Unless Jan has a really weird DNS hosting setup, there are no
390 technical barriers to having names like lsr.lilypond.org,
391 frog.lilypond.org, or news.lilypond.org. Is this something that we
394 (prep: 1 hours+2 weeks. discuss: 5 hours)
396 @item @strong{Clarity for sponsorships}:
397 We currently do not advertize bounties and sponsorships on the
398 webpage. How much advertising do we want, and what type?
399 Should we change the "structure" / "framework" for bounties?
401 (prep: 2 hours. discuss: 10 hours)
403 @item @strong{Separate branches for active development}:
404 it might be good to have @emph{everybody} working on separate
405 branches. This complicates the git setup, but with sufficient
406 logic in lily-git.tcl, we can probably make it transparent to
407 newbies. However, we'd need a reliable person to handle all the
408 required merging and stuff.
410 (prep: 2 hours. discuss: 10 hours)
412 @item @strong{When do we add regtests?}:
413 There is a discrepancy between our stated policy on adding
414 regtests, and our actual practice in handling bugs and patches.
417 There is also a wider question how to organize the regtests, such
418 as where to put interesting-console-output regtests, including
419 stuff like lilypond-book and midi2ly in a sensible manner, and
420 possibly including regtests for currently-broken functionality.
422 (prep: 2 hours. discuss: 5 hours)
424 @item @strong{code readability}:
425 "Our aim when producing source code for Lilypond in whatever
426 language is that it should be totally comprehensible to a
427 relatively inexperienced developer at the second reading."
430 - aids maintainability of code base
431 - "second reading" so newer developers can look up unfamiliar
433 - will help to keep things simple, even if the code is doing
434 complex stuff discourages "secret squirrel" coding, e.g. "how
435 much functionality can I squeeze into as few characters as
436 possible" "comments are for wimps"
437 - will aid not *discouraging* new developers to join the project
439 (prep: 2 hours. discuss: 10 hours)
441 @item @strong{C++ vs. scheme}:
442 what should be in scheme, what should be in C++, what can/should
443 be ported from one to the other, etc. Questions of
444 maintainability, speed (especially considering guile 2.0), and the
445 amount of current material in either form, are important.
447 (prep: 5 hours. discuss: 15 hours)
449 @item @strong{always make an issue number for patches}:
450 there is a proposal that we should always have a google code issue
451 number for every patch. This proposal is closely tied to our
452 choice of patch review tool; if we switch to a different tool (as
453 suggested in a different proposal), this proposal may become moot.
455 (prep: 1 hour. discuss: 5 hours)
457 @item @strong{initalizer lists}:
458 shoudl we use initalizer lists for C++? AFAIK they make no
459 difference for built-in types, but there's some weird case where
460 it's more efficient for objects, or something.
462 Probably not worth making this a weekly thing on its own, but we
463 can probably wrap it up with some other code-related questions.
465 (prep: 15 minutes. discuss: 3 hours)
469 @node Policy decisions (finished)
470 @subsection Policy decisions (finished)
472 Here is a record the final decisions, along with links to the
476 * GOP-PROP 1 - python formatting::
477 * GOP-PROP 2 - mentors and frogs::
478 * GOP-PROP 3 - C++ formatting::
479 * GOP-PROP 4 - lessons from 2.14::
480 * GOP-PROP 5 - build system output (not accepted)::
481 * GOP-PROP 6 - private mailing lists::
482 * GOP-PROP 7 - developers as resources::
483 * GOP-PROP 8 - issue priorities::
484 * GOP-PROP 9 - behavior of make doc::
487 @node GOP-PROP 1 - python formatting
488 @subsubsection GOP-PROP 1 - python formatting
490 We will follow the indentation described in PEP-8.
491 @uref{http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/}
495 use 4 spaces per indentation level
498 never mix tabs and spaces (for indentation)
501 Code indented with a mixture of tabs and spaces should be
502 converted to using spaces exclusively
504 Once this is done, we should add @code{python -tt} to the build
505 system to avoid such errors in the future.
509 There should be absolutely no tab characters for indentation in
510 any @code{.py} file in lilypond git. All such files should be
511 converted to use spaces only.
513 @subsubheading Discussions
516 @uref{https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2011-06/msg00060.html}
517 @uref{https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2011-06/msg00084.html}
518 @uref{https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2011-06/msg00310.html}
519 @uref{https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2011-06/msg00574.html}
523 @node GOP-PROP 2 - mentors and frogs
524 @subsubsection GOP-PROP 2 - mentors and frogs
526 Nothing much was decided. The list of responsibilities was
527 slightly altered; see the new one in @ref{Mentors}. We should
528 encourage more use of the Frogs mailing list. There's a list of
529 contributor-mentor pairs in:
532 @uref{https://github.com/gperciva/lilypond-extra/blob/master/people/mentors.txt}
535 That's pretty much it.
537 @subsubheading Discussions
540 @uref{https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2011-06/msg00311.html}
546 @node GOP-PROP 3 - C++ formatting
547 @subsubsection GOP-PROP 3 - C++ formatting
549 Speaking academically, C++ code style is a "solved problem". Let's
550 pick one of the existing solutions, and let a computer deal with
551 this. Humans should not waste their time, energy, and creativity
552 manually adding tabs or spaces to source code.
554 We have modified @code{fixcc.py} to use astyle, along with extra
559 the final script will be run @strong{blindly} on the lilypond
560 source code. We will accept whatever formatting the final version
561 of this script produces, with no manual tweaking.
564 patches which have been run through this tool will not be rejected
565 for style reasons. Any code formatting @qq{desires} which are not
566 enforced by @code{fixcc.py} will not be considered grounds for
570 for now, this style will not be enforced. It is not cause for
571 concern if patches which do not follow the formatting done by
572 @code{fixcc.py} are pushed. From time to time, Graham will run
573 the formatter on the entire code base, and commit the resulting
576 In a few months, we will tighten up this policy item (with some
577 sort of automatic processing), but that is outside the scope of
578 this policy item and is a matter for later discussion.
581 after the proposal is accepted, we will leave some time for
582 existing patches to be accepted and pushed. The script was
583 run on the source code on @strong{2011 August 01}.
589 LilyPond is a GNU project, so it makes sense to follow the GNU
590 coding standards. These standards state:
593 We don’t think of these recommendations as requirements, because
594 it causes no problems for users if two different programs have
595 different formatting styles.
597 But whatever style you use, please use it consistently, since a
598 mixture of styles within one program tends to look ugly. If you
599 are contributing changes to an existing program, please follow the
600 style of that program.
603 (@uref{http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/Formatting.html})
605 With that in mind, we do not think that we must blindly follow the
606 formatting given by the currrent version of Emacs.
608 @subheading Implementation notes
610 We can avoid some of the style change pollution in git history by
611 ignoring whitespaces changes:
617 @subsubheading Discussions
620 @uref{https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2011-06/msg00526.html}
621 @uref{https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2011-06/msg00796.html}
622 @uref{https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2011-07/msg00200.html}
623 @uref{https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2011-07/msg00525.html}
624 @uref{https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2011-07/msg00751.html}
625 @uref{https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2011-07/msg00751.html}
629 @node GOP-PROP 4 - lessons from 2.14
630 @subsubsection GOP-PROP 4 - lessons from 2.14
634 A brief history of releases:
636 @multitable @columnfractions .2 .2 .3
637 @headitem date (YYYY-MM-DD) @tab version @tab comment
638 @item 2008-10-28 @tab 2.11.63 @tab nobody checking regtests
639 @item 2008-11-17 @tab 2.11.64
640 @item 2008-11-29 @tab 2.11.65
641 @item 2008-12-23 @tab 2.12.0
642 @item 2009-01-01 @tab @tab somewhere around here, Graham becomes
643 officially release manager, but Han-Wen still builds the actual
645 @item 2009-01-01 @tab 2.12.1
646 @item 2009-01-25 @tab 2.12.2
647 @item 2009-02-28 @tab 2.13.0
648 @item 2009-06-01 @tab 2.13.1 @tab note jump in time!
649 @item 2009-06-27 @tab 2.13.2 @tab first Graham release?
650 @item 2009-07-03 @tab 2.13.3
651 @item 2009-09-09 @tab @tab Graham arrives in Glasgow, gets a
652 powerful desktop computer, and begins serious work on GUB (sending
653 bug reports to Jan). It takes approximately 100 hours until GUB
654 is stable enough to make regular releases.
655 @item 2009-09-24 @tab 2.13.4
656 @item 2009-10-02 @tab 2.13.5
657 @item 2009-10-22 @tab 2.13.6
658 @item 2009-11-05 @tab 2.13.7
660 @item 2010-01-13 @tab 2.12.3
662 @item 2010-03-19 @tab 2.13.16 @tab Bug squad starts doing a few
663 regtest comparisons, but IIRC the effort dies out after a few
666 @item 2010-08-04 @tab 2.13.29 @tab Phil starts checking regtests (BLUE)
668 @item 2011-01-12 @tab 2.13.46 @tab release candidate 1 (GREEN)
670 @item 2011-05-30 @tab 2.13.63 @tab release candidate 7 (GREEN)
671 @item 2011-06-06 @tab 2.14.0
674 @c A graphical display of bugs:
676 @c @image{bugs-2.13-visualization,png}
677 @c @image{zoom-2.13-visualization,png}
679 @subheading Carl's analysis of the bugs
681 A @file{csv} spreadsheet is available.
684 @uref{https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2011-06/msg00852.html}
688 @uref{lilypond-issues-analysis.csv}
689 @uref{lilypond-issues-analysis-trim-duplicates.csv}
692 There 148 issues marked with Priority=Critical in the tracker.
694 I've done an analysis, and it looks to me like there was initially
695 a backlog of critical issues that weren't fixed, and little work
696 was being done to eliminate critical issues.
698 Somewhere about 2010-08-01, critical issues started to disappear,
699 but occasional new ones appeared.
701 There were a couple of major changes that introduced unanticipated
702 regressions (new spacing code, beam collision avoidance). These
703 produced more than the expected number of regressions.
705 It appears to me that we didn't really get serious about
706 eliminating critical bugs until about 2010-06-15 or so. After
707 that point, the number of critical bugs more-or-less steadily
708 decreased until we got to a release candidate.
710 Of particular interest, the first release candidate of 2.14 was
711 released on 2011-01-12. Over the next 10 days, about a dozen bugs
712 were reported and fixed. Release candidate 2 came out on
713 2011-02-09. No surge of bugs occurred with this release.
714 Candidate 3 came out on 2011-03-13; we got 2 bugs per week.
715 Candidate 4 came out on 2011-03-29; 2 new bugs. Candidate 6 came
716 out on 2011-04-07. We got a couple of bugs per week.
718 @subheading Notes, commentary, and opinions
721 Han-Wen: Overall, I think this cycle took too long
726 @subsubheading Discussions
729 @uref{https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2011-06/msg00797.html}
730 @uref{https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2011-07/msg00364.html}
735 @node GOP-PROP 5 - build system output (not accepted)
736 @subsubsection GOP-PROP 5 - build system output (not accepted)
738 This proposal was too broad; after a month of discussion, Graham
739 withdrew the proposal. Portions of it will be introduced in later
742 @subsubheading Discussions
745 @uref{https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2011-07/msg00320.html}
746 @uref{https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2011-07/msg00527.html}
747 @uref{https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2011-07/msg00753.html}
748 @uref{https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2011-07/msg01042.html}
749 @uref{https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2011-08/msg00116.html}
750 @uref{https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2011-08/msg00310.html}
754 @node GOP-PROP 6 - private mailing lists
755 @subsubsection GOP-PROP 6 - private mailing list
757 Potentially sensitive or private matters will be referred to
758 Graham. He will then decide who should discuss the matter on an
759 ad-hoc basis, and forward or CC them on future emails.
761 For emphasis, the project administrators are Han-Wen, Jan, and
762 Graham; those three will always be CC'd on any important
765 The lilypond-hackers mailing list will be removed.
769 There is some unhappy history about this idea in our development
773 @uref{http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2010-09/msg00178.html}
774 @uref{http://news.lilynet.net/spip.php?article121}
775 @uref{http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2010-11/msg00076.html}
778 @subheading Other projects
780 The idea of private mailing lists is hardly uncommon in
781 open-source software. For example,
784 @uref{http://lwn.net/Articles/394660/} about debian-private
785 @uref{http://subversion.apache.org/mailing-lists.html} private@@
786 @uref{http://www.freebsd.org/administration.html#t-core}
787 @uref{http://foundation.gnome.org/legal/} board members pledge
788 to keep certain matters confidential
790 every security team of every linux distribution and OS
793 In fact, Karl Fogel's @qq{Producing Open Source Software}
794 explicitly suggests a private mailing list for some circumstances:
797 [on granting commit/push access to a contributor]
799 But here is one of the rare instances where secrecy is
800 appropriate. You can't have votes about potential committers
801 posted to a public mailing list, because the candidate's feelings
802 (and reputation) could be hurt.
804 @uref{http://producingoss.com/en/consensus-democracy.html#electorate}
807 @subheading Board of governers, voting, etc?
809 Many projects have an official board of directors, or a list of
810 @qq{core developers}, with set term limits and elections and
813 I don't think that we're that big. I think we're still small
814 enough, and there's enough trust and consensus decisions, that we
815 can avoid that. I would rather that we kept on going with
816 trust+consensus for at least the next 2-3 years, and spent more
817 time+energy on bug fixes and new features instead of
818 administrative stuff.
820 Project administrators are Han-Wen, Jan, and Graham.
822 @subsubheading Discussions
825 @uref{https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2011-07/msg00783.html}
826 @uref{https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2011-07/msg01004.html}
827 @uref{https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2011-08/msg00117.html}
831 @node GOP-PROP 7 - developers as resources
832 @subsubsection GOP-PROP 7 - developers as resources
834 We shall treat developers (and contributors) as
835 @strong{Independent volunteers}: each person does whatever they
836 want, whenever they want. We have busy careers and lives; we make
837 no expectations of action from anybody (with the exception of the
838 6 people in @qq{Meister} positions).
840 @subsubheading Discussions
843 @uref{https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2011-07/msg01092.html}
844 @uref{https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2011-08/msg00087.html}
845 @uref{https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2011-08/msg00497.html}
849 @node GOP-PROP 8 - issue priorities
850 @subsubsection GOP-PROP 8 - issue priorities
852 We will delete the @qq{priority} field of the issue tracker
853 altogether. The @qq{type} system will be tweaked.
860 a reproducible failure to build either @code{make} or @code{make
861 doc}, from an empty build tree, in a first run, if
862 @code{configure} does not report any errors.
865 any program behaviour which is @strong{unintentionally} worse than
866 the previous stable version or the current development version.
867 Developers may always use the @qq{this is intentional}, or even
868 the @qq{this is an unavoidable effect of an improvement in another
869 area}, reason to move this to a different type.
872 anything which stops contributors from helping out (e.g.
873 lily-git.tcl not working, source tree(s) not being available,
874 lilydev being unable to compile git master, inaccurate
875 instructions in the Contributor's Guide 2 Quick start).
877 To limit this scope of this point, we will assume that the
878 contributor is using the latest lilydev and has read the relevant
879 part(s) of the Contributor's Guide. Problems in other chapters of
880 the CG are not sufficient to qualify as Type-Critical.
884 @subsubheading More new/changed types and labels
886 Unless otherwise specified, the current types and labels will
887 continue to be used. The new types introduced by this proposal
893 Type-crash: any segfault, regardless of what the input file looks
894 like or which options are given. Disclaimer: this might not be
895 possible in some cases, for example certain guile programs (we
896 certainly can't predict if a piece of scheme will ever stop
897 running, i.e. the halting problem), or if we rely on other
898 programs (i.e. ghostscript). If there are any such cases that
899 make segfault-prevention impossible, we will document those
900 exceptions (and the issue will remain as a "crash" instead of
901 "documentation" until the warning has been pushed).
904 Type-maintainability: anything which makes it difficult for
905 serious contributors to help out (e.g. difficult to find the
906 relevant source tree(s), confusing policies, problems with
907 automatic indentation tools, etc).
910 Type-ugly: replaces Type-collision, and it will include things
911 like bad slurs in addition to actual collision.
915 A new label will be added:
919 (label) Needs_evidence: it is not clear what the correct output
920 should look like. We need scans, references, examples, etc.
924 @subheading Reminding users about stars
926 We can remind users that they can @qq{star} an issue to indicate
927 that they care about it. Since we resolved to treat developers as
928 independent volunteers, there is no expectation that anybody will
929 look at those stars, but if any developer want to organize their
930 work schedule according to the stars, they are welcome to do so.
932 @subsubheading Discussions
935 @uref{https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2011-08/msg00019.html}
936 @uref{https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2011-08/msg00277.html}
937 @uref{https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2011-08/msg00413.html}
938 @uref{https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2011-08/msg00624.html}
943 @node GOP-PROP 9 - behavior of make doc
944 @subsubsection GOP-PROP 9 - behavior of make doc
946 If there are build problems, then it should be easier to find out
947 why it's failing. This will be achieved with log files, as well
948 as possibly including scripts which automatically display portions
949 of those log files for a failing build.
951 We will also add targets for building a specific manual (for
952 quick+easy checking of doc work), as well as for building all
953 documentation in a specific language (either English or a
954 translated language).
956 When you run @code{make doc},
961 All output will be saved to various log files, with the exception
962 of output directly from @code{make(1)}.
964 Note that @code{make(1)} refers to a specific executable file on
965 unix computers, and is not a general term for the build system.
968 By default, no other output will be displayed on the console, with
969 one exception: if a build fails, we might display some portion(s)
970 of log file(s) which give useful clues about the reason for the
973 The user may optionally request additional output to be printed;
974 this is controlled with the @code{VERBOSE=x} flag. In such cases,
975 all output will still be written to log files; the console output
976 is strictly additional to the log files.
979 Logfiles from calling lilypond (as part of lilypond-book) will go
980 in the relevant @file{build/out/lybook-db/12/lily-123456.log}
981 file. All other logfiles will go in the @file{build/logfiles/}
984 A single @code{make doc} will therefore result in hundreds of log
985 files. Log files produced from individual lilypond runs are not
986 under our control; apart from that, I anticipate having one or two
987 dozen log files. As long as it is clear which log file is
988 associated with which operation(s), I think this is entirely
989 appropriate. The precise implementation will be discussed for
990 specific patches as they appear.
993 Both stderr and stdout will be saved in @code{*.log}. The order
994 of lines from these streams should be preserved.
997 There will be no additional @qq{progress messages} during the
998 build process. If you run @code{make --silent}, a non-failing
999 build should print absolutely nothing to the screen.
1002 Assuming that the loglevels patch is accepted, lilypond (inside
1003 lilypond-book) will be run with --loglevel=WARN.
1004 @uref{http://codereview.appspot.com/4822055/}
1007 Ideally, a failing build should provide hints about the reason why
1008 it failed, or at least hints about which log file(s) to examine.
1012 If this proposal is accepted, none of these policies will be
1013 assumed to apply to any other aspect of the build system.
1014 Policies for any other aspect of the build system will be
1015 discussed in separate proposals.
1017 @subheading Don't cause more build problems
1019 However, there is a danger in this approach, that vital error
1020 messages can also be lost, thus preventing the cause of the
1021 failure of a make being found. We therefore need to be
1022 exceptionally careful to move cautiously, include plenty of tests,
1023 and give time for people to experiment/find problems in each stage
1024 before proceeding to the next stage.
1026 This will be done by starting from individual lilypond calls
1027 within lilypond-book, and slowly moving to @qq{larger} targets of
1028 the build system -- after the individual lilypond calls are are
1029 producing the appropriate amount of output and this is saved in
1030 the right place and we can automatically isolate parts of a
1031 failing build, we will work on lilypond-book in general, and only
1032 then will we look at the build system itself.
1034 @subheading Implementation notes
1036 There is an existing make variable QUIET_BUILD, which
1037 alter the amount of output being displayed
1039 http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.15/Documentation/contributor/useful-make-variables}
1040 ). We are not planning on keeping this make variable.
1042 The standard way for GNU packages to give more output is with a
1043 @code{V=x} option. Presumably this is done by increasing
1044 @code{x}? If we support this option, we should still write log
1045 files; we would simply print more of the info in those log files
1048 The command @code{tee} may be useful to write to a file and
1049 display to stdout (in the case of VERBOSE).
1052 @subsubheading Discussions
1055 @uref{https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2011-08/msg00378.html}
1056 @uref{https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2011-08/msg00703.html}
1061 @n ode GOP-PROP 10 - scheme indentation
1062 @s ubsubsection GOP-PROP 10 - scheme indentation
1064 still under discussion
1066 @subsubheading Discussions
1069 @uref{https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2011-08/msg00625.html}
1070 @uref{https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2011-08/msg01026.html}
1077 @node Grand LilyPond Input Syntax Standardization (GLISS)
1078 @section Grand LilyPond Input Syntax Standardization (GLISS)
1084 Start: sortly after 2.14 comes out, which is currently estimated
1085 to happen in January 2011.
1088 Length: 6-12 months. We're not going to rush this.
1091 Goal: define an input which we commit to being
1092 machine-updateable for the forseeable future. Any future patches
1093 which change the syntax in a non-convert-ly-able format will be
1094 rejected. (subject to the limitations, below)
1095 Once this is finished, we will release lilypond 3.0.
1100 @subheading The Problem
1102 One of the biggest complaints people have with lilypond -- other
1103 than silly thing like "there's no gui" -- is the changing syntax.
1104 Now, inventing a language or standards is difficult. If you set
1105 it in stone too soon, you risk being stuck with decisions which
1106 may limit matters. If you keep on updating the syntax,
1107 interaction with older data (and other programs!) becomes complex.
1109 @subheading Scope and Limitations
1113 tweaks will not be included. Anything with \override, \set,
1114 \overrideProperty, \tweak, \revert, \unset... including even those
1115 command names themselves... is still fair game for NOT_SMART
1119 other than that, everything is on the table. Is it a problem to
1120 have the tagline inside \header? What should the default behavior
1121 of \include be? When we abolish \times, do we move to \tuplet 3:2
1122 or \tuplet 2/3 or what (for typical triplets in 4/4 time)?
1125 we need to get standards for command names. This will help users
1126 remember them, and reduce the options for future names (and
1127 potential renamings later on). \commandOn and \commandOff seem to
1128 work well (should we *always* have an Off command?), but what
1129 about the "command" part? Should it be \nounVerbOn, or
1130 \verbNounOn ? Or \verbNotesWithExtraInformationOn ?
1133 we need standards for the location of commands. Ligature
1134 brackets, I'm looking at you. (non-postfix notation must die!)
1137 this Grand Project doesn't affect whether we have a 2.16 or not.
1138 The main problem will be deciding what to do (with a bit of
1139 messiness anticipated for \tuplet); we should definitely release a
1140 2.16 before merging _any_ of these changes.
1143 we obviously can't /guarantee/ that we'll /never/ make any
1144 non-convert-ly changes in the basic format. But we *can*
1145 guarantee that such changes would force lilypond 4.0, and that we
1146 would only do so for overwhelmingly good reasons.
1150 @subheading Workflow
1154 We're going to have lots and lots of emails flying around. The
1155 vast majority won't really fit into either -devel or -user, so
1156 we'll use a list devoted to syntax issues.
1159 Once we have a serious proposal that gained general acceptance
1160 from the separate syntax mailing list, I'll bring it to -devel.
1161 We're not going to make any changes without discussing it on
1162 -devel, but if we're going to have huge threads about English
1163 grammar and silly ideas, and I don't want to clutter up -devel.
1164 Once whatever chaotic silliness on the syntax list is settled
1165 down, I'll bring the ideas to -devel.
1168 as with GDP, I'll moderate the discussion. Not as with mailist
1169 moderation, but rather by introducing issues at specific times.
1170 We don't want a free-for-all discussion of all parts of the syntax
1171 at once; nothing will get resolved.
1174 Whenever possible, we'll decide on policies at the highest level
1175 of abstraction. For example, consider \numericTimeSignature,
1176 \slurUp, \xNotesOn, \startTextSpan, and \verylongfermata. One of
1177 them starts with the name of the notation first (slur). One has
1178 an abbreviation (x instead of cross). One has the verb at the end
1179 (On), another has it at the beginning (start). The adjective can
1180 come at the beginning (numeric, x) or end (Up). Most are in
1181 camelCase, but one isn't (verylongfermata).
1184 Instead of arguing about each individual command, we'll decide on
1185 abstract questions. Should each command begin the notation-noun,
1186 or the verb? Should all commands be in camelCase, or should we
1187 make everything other than articulations in camelCase but make
1188 articulations all lower-case? Are abbreviations allowed?
1191 Once we've answered such fundamental questions, most of the syntax
1192 should fall into place pretty easily. There might be a few odd
1193 questions left ("is it a span, or a spanner?"), but those can be
1194 settled fairly quickly.
1198 @subheading Implementation
1200 Nothing until the project is finished, then we declare the next
1201 stable release (2.16.0 or 2.18.0 ?) to be the final 2.x version,
1202 release it, then apply all the GLISS syntax changes and start
1203 testing a beta for 3.0 a week or two later.
1205 @subheading Discussion
1207 Don't respond to any of the specifics yet. Yes, we all have our
1208 pet irritations (like "what's up with \paper and \layout?!").
1209 There will be plenty of time to discuss them once GLISS starts.
1211 That said, we have a list of specific items that people really
1212 wanted to have written down. See @ref{Specific GLISS issues}.
1215 * Specific GLISS issues::
1219 @node Specific GLISS issues
1220 @subsection Specific GLISS issues
1224 add regtests for every piece of syntax (not one-command-per-file,
1225 but making a few files which, between them, use every single piece
1226 of syntax.) This is a great test for convert-ly.
1229 should GLISS cover suggested conventions? (indentation,
1230 one-bar-per-line, etc -- the kind of stuff we list for the
1231 lilypond formatting in the docs ?)
1234 how much (if any) syntactic sugar should we add? i.e.
1236 \instrumentName #'foo
1238 \set Staff.instrumentName
1240 ? Carl: maybe yes, Neil: no. (for example, it fails for
1244 the values that are used as arguments to common used overrides.
1245 Sometimes they are a symbol (e.g. #'around), sometimes a
1246 predefined variable referring to a Scheme value or object (e.g.
1247 #LEFT, #all-visible ). The main trouble is that for novice users
1248 it is not clear when there should be an apostrophe and when not.
1251 When do we need -\command and when is it just \command ?
1255 Command-line options to the lilypond binary. -dfoo counts as a
1256 tweak; we won't be trying to pin those down.
1269 If would be pedagogically simpler to realize this difference if
1270 the syntax was separate if you define a context from scratch (as
1271 is the case with \RemoveEmptyStaffContext) or if it's defined by
1272 adding onto an existing context. For example, a syntax like
1276 % Copy the current settings of the Staff context:
1278 % do whatever additional settings
1280 %%% could be used to distinguish from
1282 % Take settings from a variable:
1284 % do whatever additional settings
1290 % Start from scratch:
1299 Capitalization of identifiers: \VoiceOne ?
1304 { music expression } * 4
1306 \repeat unfold 4 { music expression }
1311 @uref{http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2010-04/msg00467.html}
1315 Personally, I find it easier to understand when there's a repeated
1316 8 in the half-bar position; it's much easier to see that you have
1321 %%% instead of one group of eight:
1326 trivially simple bar-lines:
1330 encourage, allow, or discourage, or disallow?
1333 indentation of \\ inside a @{@} construct.
1337 barline checks at the end of line should be preceded by at least 2
1338 spaces? barline checks should line up if possible (i.e. if you
1339 can use less than 4, 8, X empty spaces before a barline check to
1343 Why doesn't \transpose respect \relative mode?
1347 on \score vs. \new Score
1349 But in the light of a consistent syntax and semantic, I see no
1350 reason (from the users POV) to disallow it. After all, the real
1351 top-level context is a \book @{@}, isn't it, and I don't see a point
1352 in disallowing a \new Score construct just like \new Staff.
1354 From a syntactical POV, I see the following pros for \new Score:
1355 - You can write \with @{ ... @} for every other context but \Score,
1356 which (for consistency) should also work with \new Score.
1357 - When there's a \new Foo Bar, there's also a \context Foo Bar,
1358 which makes the same as a parallel instantiation of all Bar's.
1359 - [Quoting Rune from
1360 @uref{http://www.mail-archive.com/lilypond-devel@@gnu.org/msg14713.html}
1361 "I know that the \score-statement is a syntactical construct,
1362 but I think it would be nice to hide this fact from the users. I
1363 think we could make the use of score-block much more intuitive if
1364 changing the syntax to \new \Score and adding an implicit
1365 sequential-statement to the score."
1370 @uref{http://code.google.com/p/lilypond/issues/detail?id=1322}
1371 about \new vs. \context.
1375 Let users add their own items to the parser? comment 11 on:
1376 @uref{http://code.google.com/p/lilypond/issues/detail?id=1322}
1379 should engravers be pluralized (note_heads_engraver) or not
1380 (note_head_engraver) ?
1383 should we allow numbers in identifier names? Issue:
1384 @uref{http://code.google.com/p/lilypond/issues/detail?id=1670}
1387 should we officially allow accented characters? in general, how
1388 do we feel about utf-8 stuff?
1391 for the sake of completeness/simplicity, what about *disallowing*
1392 the "one-note" form of a music expression? i.e. only allowing
1395 \transpose c d { e1 }
1396 \transpose c d << e1 >>
1405 What should be the officially encouraged way of writing music for
1406 transposing instruments? Maybe it should be simplified?
1407 See http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2011-07/msg00130.html
1412 @node Unsorted policies
1413 @section Unsorted policies
1415 @subsubheading Language-specific mailing lists
1417 A translator can ask for an official lilypond-xy mailing list once
1418 they've finished all @qq{priority 1} translation items.
1420 @subsubheading Performing yearly copyright update (@qq{grand-replace})
1422 At the start of each year, copyright notices for all source files
1423 should be refreshed by running the following command from the top of
1430 Internally, this invokes the script @file{scripts/build/grand-replace.py},
1431 which performs a regular expression substitution for old-year -> new-year
1432 wherever it finds a valid copyright notice.
1434 Note that snapshots of third party files such as @file{texinfo.tex} should
1435 not be included in the automatic update; @file{grand-replace.py} ignores these
1436 files if they are listed in the variable @code{copied_files}.
1439 @subsubheading Push git access
1441 Git access is given out when a contributor has a significant
1442 record of patches being accepted without problems. If existing
1443 developers are tired of pushing patches for a contributor, we'll
1444 discuss giving them push access. Unsolicited requests from
1445 contributors for access will almost always be turned down.